One of my big teaching initiatives for 2017 has been to help students understand more about their learning and progress. Through reflection, self-assessment, rubric deconstruction, and meaningful conversations about grading and feedback, we’ve made major growth. Recently, I was reading a final essay draft and was blown away by one student’s work.

It's cool when you read writing from a student you're concerned about and it turns out to be the best thing they've ever written.

The student in question has weak writing skills and had been completing work inconsistently all year long. But his essay was great--it really impressed me. I couldn’t help but reflect on his growth and question why this assignment had been so effective for him as a writer. I went back through his outlines and process work, and reached a quick conclusion: our peer editing lesson did wonders for this student.

My students usually complete rough drafts, self and peer assess, and then revise. Their feedback and use of rubrics makes my job easier because so much of the feedback is already there from their peers. And because we spend so much time working with rubric language, my students have gotten pretty good at these activities.

The simplicity of this rubric led to a great peer editing activity that helped students provide specific, meaningful feedback and build a community of writers. And even better, I immediately saw room for growth for next time.

The Activity

In groups of four, each student was assigned a rubric category: content and analysis; command of evidence; coherence, organization, and style; or control of conventions. Their job was simple: read the essay essay for your specific category and provide feedback for that point of the rubric. That was all.

The students assigned content and analysis read with an eye towards critical thinking and the claim development. For command of evidence, the students looked for the use of evidence, literary elements, and citations. Each student read the work through a specific lens. After a few minutes, the groups rotated papers. Every essay was read four times by four different students with four sets of narrowly focused feedback. And it was all done on paper with highlighters and pens in hand.

This activity allowed for very specific and intensive feedback. Since every student in a group read everyone else’s papers, they were able to discuss and debrief in their groups as a community of writers and editors. The students helped one another as individuals and as a collective group. Students were asked to read at least half the essay in their editing; if time ran out, they simply passed it on to the next group member. More than likely, the mistakes of the first half continued, so like a good teacher providing feedback, students didn’t need to comment on every single issue.

And the work was the better for it. These essays were the easiest long pieces of writing for me to assess this year. The students did the hard work. With their comments and the single point rubrics, I was able to give additional feedback quickly and efficiently, and more often than not, that work had been done by and for the students instead.

Next Time

This time, the feedback was collaborative and a little more exciting than the average peer editing lesson. Next time, though, there’s an easy opportunity for movement, too. Instead of identifying groups by tables, I want to introduce a station rotation aspect, too.

For example, a logical final station involves using Chromebooks for revision. Maybe one station is all green highlighters with the task of only identifying strong evidence. Another station has stickers to provide feedback on grammar and writing. The ideas are still growing and developing, but have a lot of potential to engage students more and more in this growth and learning. I’ve been eager to introduce more movement and explore stations at the high school level and can’t wait to give it a try.

What are your favorite strategies for peer editing, revision, or stations in your classroom? How would you improve these ideas? Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.

This year, my English 10 students and I took a new approach to #GeniusHour. We focused our student through the lens of the English classroom with #GenreGenius, a deep dive into literary study. Students chose genres to investigate, learned about tropes and origins, read a lot, and did something. Learn more about our work at geniushour.aschoenbart.com or past #Schoenblog posts here.

I love that we’ve focused the open exploration and passion-based learning of #GeniusHour through our class content; it’s made our study more unique to English and a little more special. Since students are already investigating their own interests by conducting formal research in our school’s Capstone program, it was a welcome shift. We can apply the same skills and fundamental philosophy of learning in a new way.

Still, there’s a lot I missed about our traditional #GeniusHour. Mistakes were made.

Let me be clear: these are mistakes in instructional design, the kind that we all probably make when trying something new for the first time. My complaints aren’t with my wonderful students, but with myself. They come from the privilege of 20/20 hindsight. Now that we’re at the end of the project, it’s easy to look back and reflect.

My students read a lot. They read things they might never have outside of our class. They enjoyed it--I think--and they did great things with their learning. I don’t regret any of that. But here are four important aspects of #GeniusHour where I made mistakes or where I felt like we missed out on opportunities. These are things I want to do better to help my students continue to do better, too.

1. Action Research

In #GeniusHour, my students learned to conduct their own action research as a part of their work. Almost every student did so successfully with interesting surveys, interviews, and artifact studies. I even wrote about the value of teaching students to conduct action research in Teaching Students to Conduct Action Research. But I didn’t focus on it in #GenreGenius because it didn’t feel as authentic to literary analysis and genre study.

But in retrospect, I was wrong. One student chose to survey classmates about how science fiction impacted the way they think about the world, and it was an awesome compliment to her own reading and analysis. I didn’t know much I missed this component of #GeniusHour projects past until I saw it again this year.

2. Literary Criticism

With high school sophomores, I wanted my students to have complete control over their reading and story consumption. As long as they found a range of long, short, media, and informational texts, the choice was up to them. I didn’t focus on the quality of the texts as much as maybe I should have. We didn’t use research databases specifically because it was a skill they had already mastered. Instead, I focused on passion and freedom.

But I think I missed an opportunity to teach my students to become critics. I wish we had taken the time to read some genre criticism so that students could develop an informed stance on the genre. They all leaned about genre history, influences, tropes, and seminal works, but I wish there was a more argumentative and critical lens to it all.

3. Synthesis

The need for more synthesis is a longstanding area for improvement in #GeniusHour for my work. I explored it most recently in 5 Ways I Want to Improve #GeniusHour. Last year, some of my students’ projects felt too disjointed and lacked a synthesis of ideas and research. This year, though, the research was more foundational. It was the reading that inspired the creation, for the most part. To that end, most projects didn’t have actual citations because they helped develop thinking, not provide quotes or ideas.

Students made those references in synthesis blog posts, exploring the genre’s impact by discussing all of the works they read or watched. I wish we did more here, too, and really dove into synthesis writing. It was a great opportunity to further develop an important skill by bringing together all of the reading and sources to create new meaning. We do this with the NYS Regents argument essay and other work throughout the year, and it was an obvious missed point here.

4. Authentic Audiences

Despite last year’s successes with Twitter, I didn’t pursue it as much with my students this year. My freshmen needed more scaffolding and my sophomores seemed disinterested; I don’t like these excuses but they led to a more passive push of social media in my classroom this year. That’s a topic that definitely deserves another blog post.

Still, we commented on each other’s blogs and shared them with the world. I Tweeted students work and we we got some comments and feedback. But without making authentic audiences and social media an important part of our learning throughout the year, the audience for blogging and projects didn’t have the same payoff. My students’ work was great, overall, but many had trouble making the authentic audience connection. I miss the way that social media helped my students grow and connect last year, and regret not revisiting it more this year.

Failing Forward

I framed this articles as mistakes, but really they are learning opportunities. I chose not to address these four ideas as much this year because my students were getting those skills in other ways. In fact, I’m working with a team to implement many of these skills in the school’s Capstone program to great success. So maybe my mistakes or missed opportunities are really my own nostalgia. Maybe I’m just missing these elements from my classroom--it’s bittersweet when I don’t need to teach a skill because my students are coming in with stronger skills and knowledge every year.

And those are all good things. Things that I’m proud of. While I’m reflective and a little critical, I can’t help but look at the outcomes of #GenreGenius and see passion, engagement, and innovation. My students have studied a dozen different genres and produced videos, plays, satires, interactive maps, and so much more.

And those are just the things I’ll be sharing in coming weeks. We will explore some of the #GenreGenius projects, student reflections, and goals for next year. Stay tuned.

How has the end of the year helped you reflect? What missed opportunities can you learn from for next time? Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.

Hey there, True Believer! This article discusses lessons learned from Guardians of the Galaxy 2 as they apply to teaching and our students. While there’s mention of both films and their characters, there aren’t any real spoilers--no big scenes ruined or surprises spoiled. I do discuss the characters and their goals in a general sense, but no more than a teaser trailer might. Read on, True Believer!

The world today is a serious place. It’s become easier and easier to view things through a negative lens and to experience negativity in our world and our schools. But even when our reality is dark and dreary, or when our schools are overwhelmed by super-villain-like mandates, we can find an escape. Whether it’s by connecting to stories, to ideals, or to each other, storytelling has the power to bring us together to overwhelm the impossible.

Many of our stories have echoed the darkness of the world outside, making the positive ones even more important. Batman once reminded us that the sky is darkest before the dawn. Superman helped us to look to the sky and believe that a man can fly. Spider-Man helped us understand the power of responsibility and the potential of heroism.

And the Guardians of the Galaxy remind us that saving the world can be fun. The Guardians might be reluctant heroes, but in their misadventures they remind us to laugh, have fun, and support each other in our efforts to save the world--and maybe our students.

I loved this movie: it’s a fun, hilarious, and easy film to watch but adds more complexity to its characters and messages than some of Marvel’s recent super-hero blockbusters. It’s also unapologetically positive and fully committed to its comic book origins. It wasn’t perfect, but embraced its truth completely.

The best comic book characters help us see ourselves and what we can become. Each of the Guardians reveals a different lesson about dealing with others, building community, and standing up for what you believe in. They may be comic book super-heroes, but when they save their galaxy, they can teach us to save ours, too. They remind us that we can have fun and save the universe--an important lesson for our schools.

7 Lessons for Teachers From #GuardiansoftheGalaxy

1. Star Lord: Be The Hero

Peter Quill might just be this generation’s Han Solo--a reluctant rogue who can’t help but fall in love with being the hero. He reminds us that to be a hero--even a legendary hero--all we need to do is try. He may not make every right decision but he stands up for the things he cares about and makes the hard choices when it counts. As a child, Peter Quill reminds us that all of our students need saving sometimes. And as Star Lord, he shows that we can all be heroes, too.

2. Gamora: Family is Complicated

No matter how our students come to our classrooms and schools, it’s our jobs to get them to where they need to be. We need to learn about our student’s families, cultures, and home lives to better understand how who they are impacts the students and young people they are and can become. Gamora shows us that even though family is complicated, we can make positive change and everyone deserves a second chance.

3. Rocket: We All Have Baggage

Rocket’s baggage isn’t his family but his creation--his identity. Behind the racoon-like, mean exterior, Rocket is just looking for understanding. Like many of our students, he’s not yet comfortable with himself and is looking to make connections. We need to dig deep with our students--especially our Rocket’s--to learn about their baggage and how to get them through it. Even Rocket wants to belong--and deserves to.

4. Drax: Laugh More

Why are schools so serious? Why can’t we have more fun? It’s hard to balance the pressure of testing, curricula, student needs, and so much more, but sometimes we need to take a step back and smile. We need to look at the big picture, lower the stakes, and find humor in ourselves and our students. As Drax learns, humor is a powerful tool to connect and grow; the hard work of teaching and learning could benefit from more laughter.

5. Mantis: Feel More

Mantis, a long time comic book Guardian is new to the movie universe. Her powers help her feel, amplify, or influence emotions. Mantis’ message isn’t subtle, but it sure is clear: feel more. We don’t teach content areas in schools; we teach students. We can’t fulfill our heroic destinies without recognizing and embracing our humanity, too. The classroom and our schools aren’t just places to learn, but to laugh like Drax, to feel like Mantis, and to connect with each other and the world around us.

6. Yondu: It’s Never Too Late to Change

We all make mistakes and not all of our decisions make sense in the moment. But no matter what, it’s never too late to change. Whether it’s a bad day or year, we can all find redemption. Behind Yondu’s cruel and aggressive facade is a much more complex character with a complicated history and emotions. Behind all of our students, and ourselves, are complicated individuals, and sometimes we need a second chance, too.

7. Baby Groot: Care for Our Kids

The evolution of Groot to Baby Groot isn’t just an adorable new look for our favorite tree-god-alien; it’s a whole new personality, too. Baby Groot embodies the innocence of our students. Even the most powerful of us all need protection and guidance. Baby Groot dances, plays, and has fun, and it’s up to his teammates to care for him like frustrated parents. The students in our classes are our charges, and we, too, need to build communities that protect and support each other.

How have the Guardians, super heroes, or pop culture inspired your teaching or learning? What did you learn from the #GuardiansoftheGalaxyVol2? Please share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.

About Me

Adam is a high school teacher, technology coach, Google for Education Certified Trainer, and EdD candidate. He is one of the National School Board Association's “20 to Watch” Educational Technology Leaders for 2016. He is also the co-founder of The Education Calendar, a crowdsourced map and calendar of education events worldwide. Adam teaches in New York in a 1:1 Chromebook classroom and blogs about teaching and educational technology at aschoenbart.com. He can be reached at aschoenbart@gmail.com and would love to connect on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.